be quiet! Dark Rock Pro 5 cooler review: More affordable premium CPU cooling

be quiet! offers some of the best cooling solutions in the market. It's all in the German company's name, "be quiet!" The be quiet! Dark Rock Pro 5 is an affordable air cooler for the latest Intel and AMD processors with a rated TDP of 270W. I know what you're thinking, "$100 isn't affordable," but hear me out. This cooler is so good, you could use it with an Intel Core i9-14900K or AMD Ryzen 9 7950X. Sure, you won't be able to overclock either processor and may have to play around with the fan curves and whatnot in the BIOS to achieve the best performance, but it's possible.

The Dark Rock Pro 5 is a cut-down version of the be quiet! Dark Rock Elite. You won't find any RGB lighting here and the way the fans are attached to the heatsink differs slightly, but it's almost as good performance-wise and manages to bring down the cost below $100. Utilizing a combination of a 135mm fan and 120mm fan, the Dark Rock Pro 5 can push through a lot of air. Even if case airflow isn't the best, this CPU cooler will be able to keep temperatures within a better range to avoid thermal throttling at all costs.

About this review: be quiet! sent XDA a Dark Rock Pro 5 for this review but had no input to its contents.

Price, specs, and availability

be quiet! listed the Dark Rock Pro 5 for $100 at launch, but it can already be found for as little as $85, which is a great price to pay for such a beefy CPU cooler. This thing can handle the latest AMD and Intel processors and with a TDP rating of 270W, it'll take on even an overlocked mid-range chip. Much like Noctua's NH-D15, the be quiet! Dark Rock Pro 5 is all about cooling performance with two high-quality fans and a heatsink design to maximize transference from the CPU IHT and dissipation.

Design and features

Stunning stealthy aesthetic

If you've used a be quiet! product in the past, you'll know what to expect with the Dark Rock Pro 5. Sharing a similar look to the flagship Dark Rock Elite, albeit without any RGB lighting, this CPU cooler has a stealthy design that will look great installed behind a glass side panel. The brand isn't known for creating flashy products and it's great to see them continue this with the latest wave of cooling solutions. Even the packaging is simple, to the point, and (of course) black.

Included with the main heatsink are two Silent Wings fans, mounting hardware for attaching the CPU cooler to an Intel or AMD socket, and some instructions. be quiet! Ensures its coolers are easy to install the Dark Rock Pro 5 can be attached to a motherboard in just a few moments. In terms of socket support, this cooler can be used with an Intel LGA 1700, 1200, and 115x, as well as AM5 and AM4 on the AMD front. There’s even a long screwdriver included.

To push the boundaries of air cooling, be quiet! made the Dark Rock Pro 5 massive.

Making use of a tower design, the Dark Rock Pro 5 has seven 6mm copper heat pipes, allowing the heastink to quickly transfer heat from the CPU to the countless available fins. These are then blasted with air using the two fans to take the heat and exhaust it through the rear of the PC case. To push the boundaries of air cooling, be quiet! made the Dark Rock Pro 5 massive with a height of 168mm. Although it weighs a substantial amount, the process of installing the cooler is straightforward for AMD and Intel platforms.

Worth noting are the design choices for fin density. Toward the rear of the Dark Rock Pro 5, be quiet! cut out some of the fins to ensure maximum compatibility with VRM cooling, which most motherboards have these days. There are similar cut-outs in other locations to aid with airflow and reduce noise, something be quiet! prioritizes with its coolers. There's even a miniature heatsink atop the main baseplate that attaches to the CPU.

Cooling performance

No CPU is too much for this cooler

The two be quiet! Silent Wing fans are controlled through PWM and can be managed through the BIOS. I would recommend this route instead of using the available switch on the cooler itself. Simply leave it in performance mode and then adjust the fan curve accordingly in your motherboard BIOS. I'm a huge fan of these fans and it's great to see them on this CPU cooler, with the smaller blower capable of hitting 2,000 RPM and the larger 135mm fan at 1,700 RPM.

Temperatures were in line with expectations of an air cooler, falling short of what's possible with a liquid AIO.

To test this CPU cooler, I used the trusty AMD Ryzen 9 7950X, a Gigabyte B650 Aorus Elite AX Ice motherboard, and 32 GB of DDR5 RAM with large heatsinks. The 7950X has a TDP rating of 175W, though it's possible to produce much more heat through stock settings. The Dark Rock Pro 5 handled the CPU well. Temperatures were in line with expectations of an air cooler, falling short of what's possible with a liquid AIO. Cinebench, which often pushes the CPU to its limit (outside of stress testing), saw a maximum recording of 84C.

General usage and gaming see lower sustained loads and as such, this is where the Dark Rock Pro 5 makes more sense. I would recommend liquid cooling for video editing and other scenarios where the CPU is at high loads for longer periods. For gaming and other usages, air coolers such as this can perform well and even generate less noise. Playing a few CPU-0intensive games such as X4: Foundations saw temperatures of around 57C, which is excellent for the 7950X.

Competition

The primary competition for this 270W TDP CPU air cooler is the Noctua NH-D15, which is featured prominently throughout our CPU cooler buyer guides. The NH-D15 is an expensive CPU cooler with a TDP rating of 220W, making it a good choice for mid to high-end processors from AMD and Intel. be quiet!'s Dark Rock Pro 5 has the upper hand with its 270W TDP but both coolers will perform very well under heavier loads with the two installed fans.

Should you buy the be quiet! Dark Rock Pro 5?

You should buy the be quiet! Dark Rock Pro 5 if:

• You want a stealthy CPU cooler without liquid.
• You don't mind spending more than $70 on a CPU cooler.

You shouldn't buy the be quiet! Dark Pro 5 if:

• You don't feel comfortable spending nearly $100 on a couple of fans.
• You don't need the higher TDP available with this cooler.

I'm not sure what I was expecting when I first installed the be quiet! Dark Rock Pro 5 onto one of our test benches. The company is renowned for its impressive cooling solutions and this one is no exception. The 270W TDP is high and I thought it may struggle with how much heat the 14900K and 7950X can produce, but it appears to be more than capable of handling these chips, so long as you don't push them harder with manual overclocking. Let the motherboard and CPU do their thing at stock settings and you'll have no trouble with the Dark Rock Pro 5.

be quiet! is renowned for its impressive cooling solutions and this one is no exception.

This makes it all the more exciting for system builders as it's only $85 at the time of this review, down from the $100 MSRP. This is a considerable saving over AIO liquid coolers, and you won't have to spend time attaching a radiator to the PC case and instead rely on internal airflow to keep everything operating optimally. The be quiet! Dark Rock Pro 5 has full support for the latest AMD and Intel sockets, comes with two high-performance fans, and is easy to install on either platform, making it one of my new favorite go-to CPU coolers for testing hardware.